Lesson: How to become a lifehacker

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out loud.

1. What springs to mind when you hear the word 'hacker'?
2. Does technology save time or does it just make us waste more time?
3. How has technology changed the way you live?
4. If you had the possibility of only working from your house on your computer, would you do it and why?
5. Have you ever tried to create something that made your life easier? What?
6. What invention do you think has had the greatest impact on society? Why?
7. Do you remember the first time you used a computer or the Internet? What did you think about it?
8. Would you hack anything to improve your daily tasks? What?
9. What do you think the world will be like a hundred years from now?
10. Have you ever studied English using your computer?

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   steal

DT   system

DT   hacking

DT   check

DT   entrench

DT   efficient

DT   range

DT   creative

DT   about

DT   search

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

ExpandTranscript:

Interviewer: When you hear the word hacking, you generally think of "bad people getting into your computer to steal your identity or do things like that". That's Whitson Gordon, he is the deputy editor of Lifehacker.com.
WG: Well, what the word hacking really means is just finding a clever way to do something, and often that's a clever way to work around an established system.
Interviewer: And you'd be surprised at how many established systems there are in your own life. Like, there is a system for how you get up in the morning, and a system for how you check your email and a system you use for your calendar and on and on and on.
WG: A lot of us are so entrenched in the systems that we're a part of and the way that we work day to day that we don't realize that sometimes there is an easier way to do something.
Interviewer: And so yeah, hacking into someone's bank account, that's really bad, but hacking into your own life, that can be really good. Because the way that we do things, generally sucks.
WG: Life hacking can range from doing something to your wireless router to get better reception, to making your headphones stay better in your ear with a two-dollar pair of ear plugs. It's just little things that make your day-to-day life easier and more efficient.
Interviewer: So how do I go about hacking systems in my own life?
WG: The first thing I would do is go by your work as normal and maybe take a little bit of time at the end of each day, just ten minutes to think about what you did that day. You know, this point in my day was really inefficient, how can I maybe do that better? Do that every day and you'll start to see where maybe the inefficiencies are in your work, you know, maybe you spend way too much time trying to wade through emails, you spend way too much time typing out certain things.
Interviewer: From there I just have to be really creative and think outside the box. Is there any tricks that you have at that point? WG: Yeah, if you say to yourself "God, I'm spending so much time typing out this, this tedious stuff all day long." You go on to Google, you search for "how to save yourself time typing". And you'll find not just a lot of solutions from people, but a lot of actual programs for computers that people have written to deal with that specific problem.
Interviewer: What would be the purpose behind caring about lifehacks?
WG: You know most of us are wasting, just wasting ‘x’ percent of our time on tedious tasks or wasting ‘x’ percent of our money on things that we could easily make ourselves and by dedicating part of your day to reorganizing your thoughts and rehacking some of these little things that you do every day, you can save a ton of time, you know, be more productive, have more time to spend on the things that are really more important.

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs sharing a few of your life hacks. If you can't think of any that you already use, think about ones you could implement. Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.

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